From the Reds marketing email this week:

Send your questions for Bronson Arroyo
Get your questions in now for our next Redlegs Q&A – this time with Reds pitcher Bronson Arroyo! Better Off Red’s Jamie Ramsey will sit down with Bronson later this month to get answers to questions from you. Send yours to redlegsnews@reds.com and be sure to include your name and where you’re from!

Corn rows, crappy ’90s guitar music, nutritional supplements, pining for Boston, the likelihood that he won’t be around next season…the list of potential topics for questions is practically limitless. Ask him how it feels to hang around with great starting pitchers for a change.

The first 30,000 people through the gates this Saturday, July 31 to see the Reds take on the Atlanta Braves will take home this lovely Homer Bailey bobblehead, or, at least, will have the opportunity to sell it to some guy with a big bag who wanders around offering up $10 or something.

In case you haven’t been watching the television broadcast for the last two weeks to hear them say it 30,000 times, the game start time has been changed. Even if you have your tickets in hand and see a different time on them, know that this game starts at 4:10 p.m. If you want to be among the first 30,000, you’ll want to be heading over there shortly after lunch.

There was a lovely Scott-Rolen-is-a-Saint story in the Toronto Sun yesterday. It’s about the camp he’s built for kids who are sick or who have sick family members who need a week of outdoorsy fun.

It is not specific to children attacked by one cruel disease.

“It’s for the kid walking home from school, head down, kicking stones,” Rolen said. “He may be healthy, but maybe mom is sick, or his father. It’s for kids who have spent too much time in the hospital.”

The Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis makes the recommendations.

Four cabins have been built, along with a man-made lake. There are paddle boats, a petting zoo, a lodge with a fireplace, two horses, a Little League diamond, a soccer field and a tree house. And they’re not finished.

“My brother, Todd, and I came up with the idea of building a camp for children and their families for a week,” Rolen said. “To have fun, have a blast. Let’s play. ”

That’s what they do.

It’s the kind of do-good-goodness that will have you furtively wiping away a tear before anyone walks by your cube and sees you crying like a little girl.

This little bit, right at the end struck me:

“This game we play, it isn’t real,” Rolen said. “The game has given me great value in my personal life. It’s like I always tell Joey Votto. There’s no karma in baseball: Bad guys can do well in this game. You can be happy in this game and not be happy in life.

“Would you rather be 4-for-4 with, two home runs and knock in six and be divorced? Or would you rather go home to your family?”

I just wonder: why single out Votto for this message? I imagine work-life balance would be particularly challenging when your work *is* a game. What do you do for relaxation? Lay bricks?

It’s been an all-too-common sight at Great American Ball Park: a young stud pitcher taking the mound, awesome in his own rite but forced to waste away on a terrible team. But for a change, we’re not talking about a Red.

Tickets are going fast for Wednesday’s game when Stephen Strasburg leads the Washington Nationals against Bronson Arroyo and the Reds. I clicked the Buy Tickets link and the “Best Available” option that was presented to me was section 303. Gets yours now if you want to make it to this game.

I only left the All-You-Can-Eat Seats ad in the screen grab because I can’t believe they’re still using that graphic. That must be the least appetizing picture of food ever put together by a Photoshop-challenged intern.

Finally, because the Nationals are in town, my mind turns immediately to Adam Dunn and wondering whether a guy that big has really still managed to remain invisible to the media, teams, and fans. On a tip from a guy at work, here’s his line compared to “All-Star” first baseman Ryan Howard:

Just sayin’.

It’s Wednesday morning, and, as it turns out, the NL winning the All-Star game for once was not a dream. Today is the one day that I and my NL fan coworkers are on the same side, banding together to harass and annoy the local White Sox fans.

That’s right, it’s the one day when I commune with the Cards fans and even Cubs fans to…wait, what did Joey Votto say according to the Chicago Cubs blog on ESPN?

I don’t like the Cubs,” Votto said. “And I’m not going to pat anybody with a Cubs uniform on the back. But because he made that really cool play, it turned out to be a really cool experience. I’m really glad we got the win today.

Ha! Well said. I almost take back what I said about thinking Votto would be a boring conversationalist, what with all his “Manuel was just looking out for his own guy,” and “I’m just grateful to get the opportunity” nicey-nice stuff.

I almost get the feeling there could be a real justified-in-being-arrogant guy buried deep down in that mild-mannered, work-ethic, too-shy-to-want-to-be-famous, Canadian-Mountie exterior. Letting the guy out right after seeing all of two pitches in two All-Star ABs might be a touch premauture, but it’s certainly not boring.